An Insatiable Sense of Wonder

﻿﻿Seminary rector recounts his journey from astrophysicist to the priesthood

BEACON PHOTO | MICHAEL WOJCIK

﻿﻿TO INFINITY AND BEYOND Father John Kartje, rector of Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago, spoke during a recent Speaking of Faith event at St. Paul Inside the Walls, Madison, about his former career in astrophysics and his current vocation as priest. Father Kartje is pictured conversing with an audience member after the event.

By
MICHAEL WOJCIK, News Editor

MADISON ﻿﻿Father John Kartje remembers as young boy lying on the hood of his father’s car in Chicago and staring up with fascination at the stars and planets that dot the night sky.

Today Father Kartje, rector of Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago, still holds onto that insatiable sense of wonder — both for the natural world and the limitless nature of God. The priest visited St. Paul Inside the Walls here Sept. 14 to speak about how his curiosity about the heavens drove him to earn a doctorate in astrophysics in his 20s. He also spoke at the diocesan evangelization center’s latest Speaking of Faith event about how meaningful interactions with people as an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist inspired him to look to heaven. The experience deepened his faith and pushed him to leave his scientific career to pursue the priesthood.

“Most people I visited in the hospital [to give them Holy Communion] were old and/or sick from cancer. One woman was angry with God, saying that she led a good life, going to daily Mass and raising children. One man bragged about cheating [on his wife] and gambling but later admitted that he was afraid to face something. This shattered my naive perception [of religion],” said Father Kartje, who engaged in a conversation with Father Paul Manning, St. Paul’s executive director and diocesan vicar for evangelization. “Here, God was working in these people. Something beautiful was transforming their hearts. How could I ignore it?” he said.

Father Kartje, also president of the University of St. Mary by the Lake on the same campus as the seminary, didn’t ignore it. At 32 he entered five-year program in seminary. His ongoing thirst for knowledge led him to earn several ecclesiastical degrees since his ordination as a priest in 2002.

Although several years apart, Father Kartje’s scientific and religious lives were ignited by same spark: “being drawn in by a hunger for something that I don’t know and that wanted to know more.” He also talked about his views on reconciling science with religion.

“Speaking of Faith is series of conversations with people from all walks of life about their experiences of God and about how they integrate their lives and faith,” said Father Manning, who interviewed Father Kartje, sitting in chair next to him in front of an enthusiastic audience in St. Paul’s auditorium.

Surprisingly, Father Kartje, who attended Catholic school, did not cultivate a dynamic faith life in his childhood. He attended Mass and prayed as “just something that we did but didn’t talk about.” He did develop an interest in space exploration in the 1980s, fascinated by the Space Shuttle and built a telescope. The future priest eventually earned a doctorate in astrophysics — the study of the physical properties of objects in space — from the University of Chicago.

He heard God speaking less through his scientific work and more through his encounters with the people he met in the hospital on Holy Communion calls. His faith began to gain strength as his witnessed the Paschal Mystery — the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus — in these suffering people, he said.

“I was not thinking so much about the back holes I was studying [as a scientist], but about the last person I visited in the hospital. I got more involved in church and prayer,” said Father Kartje, who eventually left a team of scientists — largely atheists — and the field of astrophysics.

During the conversation, Father Manning asked Father Kartje about the “mystery that engages science and God.”

“God is interwoven into everything around us. When we are in the present of another human, we are in the presence of God,” said Father Kartje, adding that everyday is filled with mystery. “We don’t know what a call, email or conversation will bring. Christianity is not a spectator sport. We are meant to engage,” he said.

That night, Father Kartje spoke about reconciling religion with science. He said that science does not supersede religion on an intellectual level because both disciplines are based on assumptions about how the universe — and God — work.

Father Kartje also cautioned Christians about reading the Scriptures as history or science. Instead, believers can mine the Bible for critical insights. For example, the apple in the Adam and Eve story in Genesis represents the nature of sin: our desire to surpass our limitations, the priest said.

During a question-and-answer session at end of the Speaking of Faith conversation, an audience member asked Father Kartje, “What do you say to people who say that science has all the answers?”

“That’s bad science and an arrogant and false statement. Science is about examining what we know and what we need to explore. How do you prove that someone is in love? That’s a tenant of our faith: that God is love. That’s something for Christians to explore,” said Father Kartje, who noted that the Church supports science and technology that advances true progress. “The Catholic faith is never afraid of the best of what is offered to the world.”

After the Speaking of the Faith event, Jane Devlin, who attends Mass at St. Paul’s, told The Beacon that she was taken with Father Kartje’s notion that “science and faith are not mutually exclusive.”

“Father Kartje affirmed the idea that God has a plan for all of us,” said Devlin, a social worker by training and a caregiver by vocation.

Allan Wright, St. Paul’s academic dean, said, “It was refreshing to sit back and listen to Father Kartje, a real-life astrophysicist, begin his presentation speaking about wonder.”

“How often in sharing our faith with others do we try to prove Biblical truths rather than starting with sheer wonder of Creation and all that is physically around us? Wonder, I believe, leaves room for God,” Wright said.